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Show pruning and spraying are profitable 17 f r " ' , - , ' ' c ' ' v J ' .1 1 i I Experts of Missouri College of Agriculture Spraying an Orchard Noto Whitewashed Trunks to Reflect Sun and Prevent Sunscald and Truni I njury. of the agricultural extension service says pruning may be done any time during the winter when the weather is warm enough to make the work com fortable. He proceeds to give some brief simple directions for getting good results ty what he calls renovation pruning of apple trees. Most of the Missouri orchards are certainly in need of a thorough renovation. Avoid the common practice of cutting cut-ting off all the branches easily The apple crop is making more money than any other farm crop if properly grown and marketed, according accord-ing to J. C. Wliittcn of the Missouri College of Agriculture. Many men are making little or nothing out of it because be-cause of their failure to prune, spray and care for their trees. Such men have been complaining that they could not sell their apples, and enormous quantities certainly were wasted in Missouri orchards last fall. At the same time, the growers who had properly prop-erly managed their orchards, graded their fruit and put it into cold storage for higher prices later in the winter are making money out of their crops. If the orchards are not well managed, bo much of the fruit is small, scabby, wormy or otherwise so unfit for storage stor-age that a satisfactory price cannot be secured for it; so it is dumped on the market in poor shape for immediate uso and in worse shape for storage. Such fruit spoils the market temporarily, temporar-ily, but is quickly consumed or lost, and even this soon after Christmas we are paying high prices again for good apples. The value of careful spraying is well Bhown by a test in which the college co-operated with 25 orchardists and sprayed each orchard four times a year at a cost of $22.26 an acre. The 1 y ) b - Same Tree After' Pruning. reached from the ground, and leaving the tree looking like a large feather duster. Begin at the top and thin out branches which shade the center of the tree too much. If the tops are too high, lower them moderately and gradually grad-ually so as not to disturb the balance between top and roots. If the root system has been developed to take care of a large top and much of this is suddenly removed, the roots will send up so much more material than the remaining top can use that there will be a big growth of water sprouts. Most people remove too little instead of too much of the top, but it is often necessary to distribute the work over two years and sometimes over three years. Trees planted too thickly may need thinning, but if the branches of neighboring neigh-boring trees overlap, the level ones may be cut back to some upright branch. Always prune close to the trunk or main branch, and never leave a stub to carry decay into the tree. Paint all cut surfaces with white lead and raw oil. Cut out blister canker completely, and disinfect the pruning tools in a mixture of corrosive sublimate subli-mate in a thousand parts of water, or disease may be carried from tree to tree throughout the orchard. Twelve-Year-Old Apple Tree Refore Pruning. fruit on the unsprayed trees sold for 118.05 an acre, while that on the sprayed trees sold for $187.19 an acre, or more than ten times as much, making mak-ing the average net profit from spraying spray-ing $136.78 an acre, or about 600 per cent on the investment. Pruning may be made to show equally equal-ly good results, but both pruning and spraying is necessary. F. W. Faurot |